Christmas 2006- tales of exhileration and amusement

So my father’s finally got the message and decided to buy me a ‘little extra’ present this year, i.e. a wee bottle of Gordon’s gin, to comfort me during the long winter nights. Hurrah, my parent’s had a revelation. Yes, I am a grown-up. It’s official, bless him.

So what else has been happening? Well there’s been mulled wine drinking (of course), outdoor ice skating of the wobbly but not humiliating variety at the Natural History Museum (I always seem to stay at the same level, never getting better, never getting worse, but then I do only go once a year), plus work-type guzzling and gorging (including a seventies night where the haute de cuisine was spam fritters and black forest gateau), then there was the piece de resistance- the pre-Christmas slide-athon curtesy of the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern (slides are now ART, how great is that?).

My newbie friend, Guinessgal and I had a whale of a time what with the whole slippy-slidy retro experience. You can really let yourself go and take a trip back to your (in my case) far distant youth- plummeting headlong through the futuristic silver tubes that look like something out of seventies sci-fi fantasy Logan's Run or Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. In fact it’s impossible to go away without a smile on your face (GSG actually went a bit further and wanted to shout 'again, again, again' telly-tubby style). As the sign in the hall says ' The slides are fast and the experience is physical'. Yes, it's (literally) a blast.

NB. If you’re planning to go on the Herculean level 5 slide, then go straight up at your allotted time and what ever happens, DO NOT LOOK DOWN, as there’s a fair bit of screaming and flailing of limbs that goes on, from young and old alike (GSG and Guinessgal went on the 3rd floor slide, not from any lack of guts and gaul however, merely because it was difficult to get tickets when we arrived at 3.00 in the afternoon- getting scared out of your wits is quite popular it seems).